No Mass Coverage for Phycilia Barnes

If it wasn’t for Facebook I would not have known about Phylicia Barnes. A friend of mine posted Phylicia’s picture as his profile. Phylicia Barnes, 16 year old honor student from North Carolina was last seen on December 28, 2010. She became missing while visiting family during the Christmas holiday. I stay up on current events pretty good but I never heard the story until sometime in January. But I did hear the stories of Polly Klaas, Natalee Holloway,, JonBenét Ramsey, Caylee Anthony, Chandra Levy Chelsea King, Elizabeth Smart, and Laci Peterson rapidly and quite frequently in the media . While the disappearance of Laci Peterson became a huge news story, a pregnant black woman named LaToyia Figueroa disappeared from Philadelphia at around the same time and attracted no national attention. Kim Pasqualini, former president of the National Center for Missing Adults now Let’s Bring Them Home, says the media tends to focus on "damsels in distress" — typically, affluent young white women and teenagers. But I don’t think it’s just race, some other factors come into play. Where I commend the Baltimore Police Dept for their efforts to bring Phycilia home, the media coverage has once again dropped the ball. Anyone with information regarding Phycilia Barnes disappearance is urged to call a toll-free 24-hour tip line at 855-223-0033.